Life On The Lily Pad - Episode 6

February is here and gone. Whoosh. There...that's two months of the year gone by without me even turning around twice. When I'm in my 90s I'm not sure I'll remember this year well enough to start any sentence with "back in aught eight......" (but I will cause I think it'd be cool to talk like that). I do remember that it was a cold, snowy month and that tidbit might stick with me for a while. It is definitely the most winter I've experienced in this province since I moved here almost 10 years ago.

1

This is Claire in an old sweater of mine:

She has "Show and Tell" in school on Fridays and it is getting harder and harder to come up with things for her to take. A three year old only has so much life experience to draw upon when showin' and tellin'.

I scoured the house for something for her to take and came up with this old sweater of mine that mom had knit for me. I called Mom and asked if she had a photo of me in the sweater. I thought I would print the pic of me for her to take to school so she could tell the whole history of the thing. Turns out my parents weren't as fanatical about photos as I am and so they didn't have one (digital has spoiled us all).

I coached Claire about what she had to say and sent her off to school in the sweater. Turns out that one of the other kids brought a painting and another one brought some cool toy and she either forgot or opted out of show and tell. Oh well. At least she's not doing what she did at the start. At the beginning of the year she'd show her backpack every single week and tell the kids all about it. Finally, the teachers asked me to send something with her especially for the event so they could hear her talk about something else.

2

Claire has decided that it is fun to root around in her and Jillian's dresser drawers. She occasionally comes downstairs with the strangest things. One day last week, she appeared with a couple of pairs of tights. I was otherwise occupied and left them alone only to find this a few minutes later:

I'm not sure but I think she got the tights on over her sweatpants and socks like that allll by herself. I wasn't allowed to take them off either.

3:

Last Sunday we took the girls to the "Tubby the Tuba" concert in Guelph. Claire has been learning about classical music and musical instruments all year. Just before Christmas, her teacher told us about this kid-friendly concert and wondered if we'd be willing to take our kids to the show as a quasi field trip. DH and I were happy to take the girls up there so we got them all decked out in their finest clothes to go to see the show. I wanted to get a cute picture of them in their dresses but being 1 and 3, a posed pic is hard to get. I got these instead...twirling, laughing, hugging...

Claire was pretty good during the concert. For the most part she sat quietly and listened to the music with only a few complaints about wanting it to be over. The show was meant for kids but really, it was still a concert band playing music without any bright colours or cartoon characters or riveting plot to keep it peppy. Well, there was one number that included some Irish dancers which both kids loved and the "Tubby the Tuba" story which was a bit more engaging. At intermission they had an instrument "petting zoo" and we all enjoyed that.

Jillian wasn't really on board with the whole sit-quietly-in-a-dark-room-and-listen-to-music plan. She didn't like having to stay on our laps and she thought it was important that she point at things and tell us what they were "Look! Light!" or "Look! Man!", etc. We were a little embarrassed but Claire's teacher assured us that the centre said it was fine for a child her age to attend and the lady sitting behind us went out of her way to tell us that Jillian was fine and for us not to shush her on her behalf.

However, the couple in front of us was NOT impressed and after a fair bit of huffing and puffing, got up and moved away from us. After intermission an elderly man loudly announced to his companion that the centre did not allow "babes in arms" and how he was going to have to speak with someone about the situation.

Seriously! When you buy a ticket for a show called "Tubby the Tuba" being put on by a community band in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, do you really expect it to be high brow entertainment? Jillian wasn't very loud, she didn't cry or scream and basically was only disruptive because she would occasionally say one of our names or point and talk in her regular speaking voice. Personally, I didn't think that was a cardinal sin but obviously some other concert goers did. Tough luck for them, I say.

4:

After the concert, we went to visit my brother at his place. He has never had the kids there before and had worked hard at kid-proofing for us. He didn't have any toys but the girls found entertainment anyway. They loved his aquarium and watched the fish for quite a while. Jillian liked his Roomba and chased it around:

Claire liked his bean-bag chair and kept tackling it:

5:

You aren't going to believe this one. Here's Jillian, post strip-down, looking sweet and cute, perched atop our storage ottoman (this was just after she stuffed herself with dinner and made her belly pook out):

Her newest stunt - she gets down on her belly like so:

Looks over the edge:

Gives a little push off:

Falls indelicately over the edge (always head first):

and lands in a heap on the floor:

after this she pops up, says "FUN!" and does it alllllll over again. Don't believe I have a kamikaze in my house? See it in video mode here! I spent 10 minutes hollering at her to stop cause she was going to hurt herself, then a few minutes resigning myself to her antics, 5 minutes taking pictures and then a few more getting video and she kept doing it after I gave up completely. This stunt is worth hours of entertainment (and may be the thing that tips me over the edge into a complete breakdown).

6:

My American friend Rachel and I occasionally exchange boxes of goodies. She's interested in Canada, I'm interested in the US, we keep one another entertained. Last year we sent one another boxes full of sweets (I love pralined pecans, she likes Aero bars....we're expanding our horizons). I'm currently assembling a maple products box for her and she just sent a Mardi Gras box to me. In my box, there was a big pile of Mardi Gras beads. I put them in a heap on the floor and told the girls to have some fun with them. Claire, after about two minutes, announced that she was beautiful so I took her picture:

Two gold-coloured necklaces, doubled. Elegant and simple. When I suggested she put on more beads she looked at me and said "Mommy! Don't be diriculous!" (I think that's three-year-old for ridiculous).

Jillian, on the other hand, looked like this:

She squealed with delight, loaded herself down, shook her necklaces, danced, shared with her Dora doll and had a good time. She's the aught eight version of Mr. T.

Who knew two little girls could be soooooo different?